Originally Posted by
Florentia
Your question is assuming it was a mistake/error, rather than a promotion to create buzz for a new property. If this were a decimal point error (like the AC Times Square listing for $3/night instead of $300/night), I would assume it was an error too. But it’s not unusual to run promotions during a property’s first six months, and the points per room while the deal was running varied by date (again, not an instance of someone keying in the wrong rate).
But yes, to be clear, I told the rep that I booked at a low rate and hoped it wasn’t too good to be true, that I wanted to book flights for the trip, and that I was worried Marriott would cancel the reservation. He viewed my reservation, confirmed the number of points I used, and said it would not be cancelled and the reservation was good.
My worthless opinion is that we are looking at it as Marriott the hotel, which they know how to do and wouldn't need to offer such a drastically good price with points. But if you look at it from the luxury safari perspective, Marriot is a new player with zero experience and no proven ability to pull it off. If I was going to that area and could afford to pay $4500 a night in cash, I would not be interested in the JW. I would be booking with a luxury safari company that has been doing it for 20 years and is a proven value for even that much money. Marriott needs good ratings and they need them fast. What better group to help make that happen, other than a group of highly loyal insiders that know they just got an incredible deal. A forgiving crowd as the kinks get worked out.
It is just the cost of starting a new business when you don't have the proven track record that you can pull off $4500 a day value.